corapegia- How are you doing your spinach starts? I have excellent results in the garden, but can get the seed to germinate inside. People have suggested it is too warm where I'm trying to start them and I believe that is correct. Do you have any tips to starting inside? organic_mamag - Have you tried growing spinach in spring? I also can not get spinach to grow well in the fall. They stay small or do poorly. I'm still working on a solution. For the last two years, I've planted seed on 4/22 (late, had to build the garden first) and 3/30 for spring growing. My last frost date is April 15. I plant nine seeds to the square foot (I do square foot gardening). My beds are pretty rich with compost, so I don't add anything or fertilize as they grow. I've had really good luck with the following varieties: Bloomsdale Longstanding (big), Noorman (bolts late) and Merlo (Italian). For fall growing, I want to try transplants, but as I said above, I'm having poor luck. Bloomsdale Longstanding (it grew bigger): Merlo (next to the woodchuck-demolished peas) Hope spring works better for you, Bellatrix

There have been a lot of studies on spinach germination. It has been found that the "NaOCl/H2O2 method" ensures almost complete and prompt germination. Complete and prompt germination is a major marketing benefit. You can look up that method. Papers online. Seems to work in many kinds of seeds. I have not tried it, but next time I do seeds that don't like to germinate, I'll be trying it. "NaOCl/H2O2 method" is defined as - 4 hour soak in 0.5% NaOCl, followed by water soak for 15 hours, followed by sowing in 0.3% H2O2. You need the water soak to completely get rid of the NaOCl, which interferes with seedling growth. Shake it! Laundry bleach (e.g. Clorox) is 5% NaOCl. Topical antiseptic hydrogen peroxide is 3% H2O2. So we're talking 10:1 dilution of each. FWIW, the NaOCl also sterilizes the seeds, so they don't carry bad bacteria. It is said that NaOCl neutralizes germination inhibitors in the seed coat. H2O2 actually helps break down the seed coat, but does not interfere with seedling growth. I've heard that mild acid baths also help break down the seed coat.

Deanna, I, like you, have had the worst luck getting spinach to germinate and have tried all of the tricks: different varieties, direct sowing at different times of the year, soaking, soaking in combinaion with chilling, yada yada yada. If it's been recommended in print or on a gardening forum, I've tried it. This past fall/winter (the best time for us in lower Alabama to grow spinach) I got a dozen or so plants after sowing (no joke) about a hundred seeds. :( This spring I'm trying a Japanese variety meant for summer harvest--Okame from Kitazawa Seed Co. I sowed WAY more than I'd hoped to germminate (based on past experience) and I believe every last one of them has germinated! As for spinach in the garden, mine this past season got a good dose of home made compost and biweekly fish emulsion and did fine. And not only did they transplant well from cell packs to the garden, when it came time to plant corn about a month ago, the spinach was still going strong so I moved it to another bed. A small hiccup in growth but it recovered really well and I'm STILL harvesting. Good luck and below is a link the the Okame if you're interested.. Here is a link that might be useful: Okame spinach

The ones in the house, I guess they just "fail to thrive". They seem to struggle along, don't grow and eventually die off. No yellowing. I think the last two were root rotted before I got them. The ones I've tried in the ground, I think I've tried to plant too late in the heat and they've literally burned up. I've just tried three more sweet basil. I got one from Home Depot, two from Sprouts. The two from Sprouts (a grocery) are sorry looking creatures, made for "living food" which I guess you're supposed to harvest when you get home but I decided to plant instead. They were so rootbound it was amazing they were still alive (but barely). I took out about 10 of 15 little plants from a tiny container out of each, loosened up the incredible root balls and stuck them in a window type container but put them outside with a pretty little globe basil from Home Depot. The one from Home Depot looks quite healthy, I put that one right in the garden on the east side of the house (figured if it survives the winter it will have some shade in the heat of summer) In the past I haven't really added fertizer. This time when I planted I put a handful of bloodmeal and bonemeal in a mixture of good potting soil in the pots. The one in the ground has good garden soil, vermiculite and I also gave it a little bonemeal/bloodmeal. It seems like all the plants have perked up and darkened in the past two or three days, a good sign. I gave some the sweet basil each a haircut, especially the one's from Sprouts which had huge leaves on long skinny stems that were weighing them down so that they couldn't stand up. That seemed to perk them up quite a bit. I'm open to all suggestions about what to do next. I stuck the window container out in the yard in full sun. Also planted a few cilantro seeds on one side of it, hope that's ok with basil.